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As we've reported in the past, the death toll on US roads keeps increasing despite ever-safer vehicles. And people are overwhelmingly to blame; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calculates that 97 percent of all fatal crashes are due to human error. One factor in all this unsafe road behavior is distracted driving, and the past few weeks have seen my inbox bombarded with new studies on the topic. After a while, a deluge like that becomes hard to ignore, so I figured it was time to sit down and read through them. And the findings reveal that drivers aren't really getting any better about focusing on the road.

The various reports use a number of different methodologies: combing through NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Report System (FARS), data collected from smartphone apps, plus surveys of drivers and companies. So taken together, they ought to give us a decent picture of the problem. As we'll see, however, you can infer very different things depending on how you look at the data, particularly when you try to break it down geographically. Let's start with the analyses of NHTSA's crash data.

Safewise looked at FARS data for 2016 (the most recent year with complete data) to investigate the prevalence of distracted driving. It found that nine percent of all road fatalities, and six percent of driver fatalities, were caused by distracted driving and that the total number of deaths had increased by 14 percent in just two years. It then broke things down by state; the deadliest place to drive appears to be Mississippi, with 23.1 deaths per year for every 100,000 people. Alabama and South Carolina also exceeded 20 deaths per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, the District of Columbia is the safest place to drive, with just four deaths per 100,000 people. For context, the national average for the country was 11.6 deaths per 100,000 people.

Distracted driving: More than just cellphones

Looking past just fatal crashes, Safewise calculated that the average incidence of cellphone use causing distracted driving nationally is about 14 percent. It found the practice most prevalent among the youngest drivers (19 percent for 15-19 year olds), followed by those aged 20-29 (18 percent), 40-49 (17 percent), and 30-39 (16 percent). Elderly drivers are the least likely to use a cell phone while driving, with use as low as two percent for those aged 70 and above.

Erie Insurance, also using FARS data, came to the same conclusion about the overall incidence of cellphone use causing distracted driving crashes, adding the fact that 61 percent of distracted driving-related crashes were down to drivers daydreaming.

It's difficult to imagine legislation governing daydreaming while driving. But the past 10 years have seen plenty of legislation focused on preventing cell phone use while on the road. So Safewise looked at how well the states are enforcing laws to prevent cell phone use while driving. Fifteen states and DC have laws banning all cell phone use while driving, and most of the remaining ones at least ban texting while driving. Of these states, Delaware leads the pack in actually enforcing those laws, with 13,061 citations per 100,000 licensed drivers. New York (11,996) and DC (10,952) are the next best. But as you'll see in the infographic, many other states issue few if any tickets for breaking those laws.

Safewise

Safewise

Using smartphones to study smartphone use while driving

Drivemode is an Android app designed to adhere to NHTSA safety guidelines for a driving app, with a simplified UI and hands-free talk-to-texting. It only looked at data from its 177,000 users to look at national and state-level trends for messaging while driving. Ignoring received messages, it looked at more than 6.5 million "hands-free" messages sent via the app during 2017. It found that people message and drive most frequently during the afternoon rush hour, peaking at 6.87 messages per user per hour between 5pm and 6pm nationally. New Yorkers were the most frequent texters, with 8.21 messages per hour between 5pm and 6pm.

Next up was EverQuote. It used data from its EverDrive app, which uses the phone's GPS and accelerometers and gyroscopes, as well as noting whether the device screen is on or off, to generate a picture of each user's driving, scoring it from 0-100. In 2017, it collected data from 781 million miles of driving and found that speeding (38 percent) and cellphone use (37 percent) were the two most common unsafe behaviors among drivers. When it broke down the data by driver age, an interesting finding emerged: the very youngest drivers (17 or under) were actually the most cautious when it comes to speeding, even if they're among the worst for using a smartphone behind the wheel. It also found that there were no real gender differences in driving behavior.

When EverQuote looked at the data at a state level, some of the data appears to tell a slightly different story to the FARS data breakdown above. Many of the states with the best driving scores were in the Midwest, with Montana topping the charts: here only 33 percent of drivers used their phones, and only 19 percent of trips involved speeding. Wyoming scored an equally good score of 89.4 overall but with just slightly higher rates of cellphone use (34 percent) and speeding (22 percent).

Meanwhile the northeast corridor leads the nation for crappy driving. Worst of all is Connecticut; residents of this state scored the lowest average at 71.6, with 56 percent of trips involving speeding and 34 percent involving cell phone use. Surprisingly for this DC resident, Maryland drivers only scored fifth-worst overall.

Life360 also offers an iOS or Android app that can measure bad driving, and it, too, delved into its data to look at the problem. It found the most common times for cellphone use when driving was the afternoon rush hour (4pm-6pm) and also found that distracted driving causes other bad driving behaviors; drivers using their phones are four times more likely to speed and 40 percent more likely to have to brake heavily compared to their counterparts paying attention to the task at hand.

Like EverQuote, Life360 also found Midwest drivers to be the least distracted; Wyoming drivers used their phones only once every seven miles. Meanwhile it found New Jersey drivers ranked worst, picking up that phone every 4.7 miles.

Many dangerous drivers think they’re safe

Envista Forensics surveyed 2,000 people who admitted to recent dangerous driving behaviors—being rushed, distracted, aggressive, or intoxicated. Of these, 56 percent didn't actually think distracted driving was dangerous—a rather shocking fact. Among aggressive drivers, 25 percent said they wanted to teach someone else a lesson, 16 percent wanted to get even, and 12 percent wanted to intimidate the other driver. Only 47 percent said it reflected bad judgement upon their part.

But it did find signs of people wanting to do better. Three-quarters of those surveyed said they had tried and succeeded in driving intoxicated less often, 64 percent say they are being rushed and aggressive while driving less often, and 58 percent have tried and succeeded in driving distractedly less often. But 22 percent haven't even tried to be less distracted when driving, suggesting we have a ways to go. Envista also broke down its data geographically, discovering that drivers in the Southeast were most likely to minimize the danger of distracted driving. Meanwhile, those Northeasteners were most worried about being late (and therefore most likely to speed). It also looked at trends by age, finding Boomers most likely to say they can drive safely while intoxicated and Millennials five times more likely to say they can safely multitask while driving.

Even among people who have to drive for work, there's plenty of poor behavior out on the roads. Motus spoke to businesses about driving behavior and found that the cost to employers for vehicle crashes has risen from $47.4 billion in 2013 to $56.7 billion in 2017. And 68 percent of businesses have reported recent on-the-job crashes in company-owned vehicles, but only 42.6 percent of businesses are mandating driver safety programs before they let employees drive work vehicles. The data for on-the-job crashes involving employee-owned vehicles was 41 percent, with even fewer (19.5 percent) mandating driver safety programs.

All in all, the reports above paint a relatively bleak picture of our attitudes toward safe driving. As ever, the best advice if you're going to be behind the wheel is to put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode and place it out of sight in a cubby.

201 Reader Comments

No surprise... Cellphones tend to be (ahem) more addictive than what your usual 'just say no' campaigns can fix.

The question is how we can get people away from such behavior. I'd say, given the relative lack of continued success with DWI, the issue of distracted driving won't go away until fully autonomous driving arrives.

I am not surprised by this information. Please, discourage your friends from being distracted/intoxicated while driving. Let the passenger be in charge of the music, put the phone down before you take off, arrange maps and directions before the trip so that you don't need to do anything on the fly.

Just a minor nitpick: the word "northeaster", or "nor'easter" is typically used to refer to a storm, not a person who lives in the Northeast. I'm not aware of any term for the population as a whole; it's typically by done by state, or sub-region.

Just a minor nitpick: the word "northeaster", or "nor'easter" is typically used to refer to a storm, not a person who lives in the Northeast. I'm not aware of any term for the population as a whole; it's typically by done by state, or sub-region.

I feel the author is unaware of the geographical limits of the Midwest, which does not include Montana, nor Wyoming. The Census Bureau puts both those states in the broad West area, or more specifically the Rocky Mountain subregion.

The most commonly accepted (and Census Bureau official) set of states in the Midwest.

I can't believe the state I live in (NC) has issued 0 tickets. As many people as I see around here driving while on their phone, you would think that SOMEONE has gotten at least one ticket for texting and driving.

Huh, at much as I would hate it it looks like the handheld ban seems to work decently. I just don't want to be pushed into upgrading to a more modern/expensive car or buying some extra device to work around.

Disclaimer: I already have a Bluetooth FM transmitter for my 99 Miata so I can do hands free calls but it isn't really preferred as I'm yelling at my center console and not to a mic close to my face. Also, answer/hang up buttons on steering wheels help. My wife's 2012 Hyundai has all that stuff, I might let her upgrade and I'll take her car if it comes down to it.

Huh, at much as I would hate it it looks like the handheld ban seems to work decently. I just don't want to be pushed into upgrading to a more modern/expensive car or buying some extra device to work around.

Disclaimer: I already have a Bluetooth FM transmitter for my 99 Miata so I can do hands free calls but it isn't really preferred as I'm yelling at my center console and not to a mic close to my face. Also, answer/hang up buttons on steering wheels help. My wife's 2012 Hyundai has all that stuff, I might let her upgrade and I'll take her car if it comes down to it.

When you upgrade from that old unsafe Miata, I'll take it off your hands for you.

If you wanted to go through the effort, you could replace the stereo with one having bluetooth support and a microphone that you can mount somewhere convenient like on the dash or steering column.

As a Bay Area motorcyclist who commutes daily between Oakland and Mountain View, I get a bird's eye view of this behavior every single day, especially in the morning when its dark and I see the tell-tale glow on many faces.

I genuinely don't give a rat's ass who you are, when you drive you keep your eyes and hands off your friggin' phone. I promise, you're really not that important.

No surprise... Cellphones tend to be (ahem) more addictive than what your usual 'just say no' campaigns can fix.

The question is how we can get people away from such behavior. I'd say, given the relative lack of continued success with DWI, the issue of distracted driving won't go away until fully autonomous driving arrives.

I concur. We can't — "get people away from such behavior" — that is. In the competition between something they want to do: text, talk, etc and something they should do: pay attention to the road, the thing they want is always going to win. The only solution to this problem is self-driving cars. The sooner they arrive the better. Even if they are not perfect, they will soon be safer than the current distracted drivers we put up with.

As a current Pittsburgh resident I can anecdotally confirm it has gotten worse.

I lived in Pittsburgh since 2003, and drivers used to be much more careful - I was never really worried about distracted drivers sideswiping my vehicle or otherwise causing an accident, and I never needed to honk at other cars.

Then I temporarily moved to Manhattan for college and used my horn every time I got into my car - people there seem to think driving is a contact sport.

After graduating I moved back to Pittsburgh and somehow feel less safe behind the wheel than I did in New York City. In New York, people are aware they (and everyone else) drives aggressively, and ironically this leads to more attentive driving. In Pittsburgh, people don't drive aggressively but 9/10 people seem to be on their phone/eating a burrito/putting on makeup behind the wheel. I've used my horn about infinity percent more than the last time I was in Pennsylvania, and it's an unnerving trend that only seems to be getting worse. Every commute I see cars drifting across lanes and almost sideswiping other vehicles, or drivers not checking their mirrors/blind spots and merging into a full lane. smh.

I dispute the numbers they state, at least for Michigan. phone usage while driving is rampant here, whether it's the dipshit guy trying to hide the fact that he's texting (thereby staring down in the vicinity of his center console) or the idiot young girl I saw grinning away while she texted/snapchatted/whatever while propping her phone and hand on the door sill by the side mirror. On the freeway. Her window was open too, so if I was a passenger in another car it would have been difficult to resist the urge to lean out and slap the phone onto the road.

...

the bigger problem is that I don't see the laws enforced all that much. Oh, sure, occasionally a city or county will get a bug up its butt about looking tough and they'll announce a week-long "crackdown" on distracted driving, but after that have police officers go right back to sitting around plucking off people doing 5 mph over the speed limit.

A big part of me wishes that the law would state that if you are nicked for texting while driving, the officer who pulls you over confiscates your phone and you only get it back after you pay the fine. And enforce it consistently.

seems to me taking these morons' phones away for a bit will get the point across in a way a traffic citation won't.

No surprise... Cellphones tend to be (ahem) more addictive than what your usual 'just say no' campaigns can fix.

The question is how we can get people away from such behavior. I'd say, given the relative lack of continued success with DWI, the issue of distracted driving won't go away until fully autonomous driving arrives.

After graduating I moved back to Pittsburgh and somehow feel less safe behind the wheel than I did in New York City. In New York, people are aware they (and everyone else) drives aggressively, and ironically this leads to more attentive driving. In Pittsburgh, people don't drive aggressively but 9/10 people seem to be on their phone/eating a burrito/putting on makeup behind the wheel. I've used my horn about infinity percent more than the last time I was in Pennsylvania, and it's an unnerving trend that only seems to be getting worse. Every commute I see cars drifting across lanes and almost sideswiping other vehicles, or drivers not checking their mirrors/blind spots and merging into a full lane. smh.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. The alternative is an entrance lane that just sits there forever. Ideally, there would be some sort of zipper merge and perhaps entrance lane rate limiting going on.

Funny you mention that, PA drivers are terrible at zipper merging. There's always the 25% of asshole drivers who cut the line and speed to the very end of their lane, causing massive traffic jams as what should be moderate speed traffic turns into stop-and-go traffic.

But anyway, I was more focusing on how people don't seem to bother checking their mirrors/blind spot sensors when changing lanes. Just two weeks ago I almost wrecked my new car because a moron in a purple Ford Fusion on Forbes Ave. floored it halfway out of a parking spot and immediately slammed on his brakes. If not for the advanced safety tech in new cars I'd 100% have slammed into his driver's side door.

It is unclear from the image, but is the citations per state normalized in the picture (the caption indicates not, but the text seems to say that it is).

The article does mention Delaware's top number as being "13,061 citations per 100,000 licensed drivers". But you're right, the image is missing any description of normalization, or what year or time period these numbers come from. Can definitely be confusing for someone skimming the article and just looking at the picture.

Question about one of the sources of data- they said they measured screen activity. Did they measure of the screen was simply on or actual user interaction with the screen? My screen is always on as I always have the Google Maps on ....just to keep track of traffic patterns. Would I be in the naughty list?

I can't believe the state I live in (NC) has issued 0 tickets. As many people as I see around here driving while on their phone, you would think that SOMEONE has gotten at least one ticket for texting and driving.

I feel like if there are 0 tickets issued, it could either mean there's very little texting while driving, or there's basically no enforcement of the ban, and I'd probably lean toward the latter.

I miss T9 texting on my old flip-phone... I could text with one hand without looking at the screen. Yes, that's still dangerous to do while driving (I was a youngin'), but far better than texting on a phone without physical buttons.

Even still, using hands-free features like Siri can be a distracting PITA. Dictating a text is great if Siri doesn't mishear you, and sometimes it's quicker to flip through your music yourself instead of being unable to explain to Siri that you want to hear Prince, not Prints...

Quote:". It found that people message and drive most frequently during the afternoon rush hour, peaking at 6.87 messages per user per hour between 5pm and 6pm nationally. New Yorkers were the most frequent texters, with 8.21 messages per hour between 5pm and 6pm."

What?? People text 7 to 8 times an hour on average while driving? The chance of getting caught is apparently nowhere near where it should be. Insane.

I can't believe the state I live in (NC) has issued 0 tickets. As many people as I see around here driving while on their phone, you would think that SOMEONE has gotten at least one ticket for texting and driving.

I feel like if there are 0 tickets issued, it could either mean there's very little texting while driving, or there's basically no enforcement of the ban, and I'd probably lean toward the latter.

I can guarantee you it’s the latter. There is a law against texting and driving here and I see people all over the place doing it. I mean hell, you’d think they’d take advantage of that to meet their quotas in tickets at the very least.

Can observe daily from my porch: drivers during morning rush hour, noon time-lunch, and evening rush.They drive like a caterpillar/accordian, when sitting in traffic. One car pulls up, leaving a 5+ car gap, then that driver looks up, pulls up, leaving same gap until next driver looks up, closes gap, repeat. The traffic can add over 100yd total of wasted space (time).

Is there any legal issue if, say, a camera were to record the cars and faces (well, they are looking down) to show this effect?

Also, local police are clueless. They could literally walk down the sidewalk and hand out citations. The drivers would never even notice...

You will also notice the driver infront of you at a redlight...they will look up REALLY fast, then down....then up, then down. You realize, they are not paying attention to the light, as much as their facebook feed or text on phone! I blew the horn once to prove to a passenger that the driver in front is not paying attention. They IMMEDIATELY ran the red light! Yeah. I made right on red and went a different way....

Just a minor nitpick: the word "northeaster", or "nor'easter" is typically used to refer to a storm, not a person who lives in the Northeast. I'm not aware of any term for the population as a whole; it's typically by done by state, or sub-region.

When it broke down the data by driver age, an interesting finding emerged: the very youngest drivers (17 or under) were actually the most cautious when it comes to speeding

I can vouch that as a new driver I was terrified of any interactions with police so I drove at or slightly below the speed limit. These days I just go with the flow of traffic (+ 2 second rule) which usually means speeding.

I can't believe the state I live in (NC) has issued 0 tickets. As many people as I see around here driving while on their phone, you would think that SOMEONE has gotten at least one ticket for texting and driving.

I feel like if there are 0 tickets issued, it could either mean there's very little texting while driving, or there's basically no enforcement of the ban, and I'd probably lean toward the latter.

I can guarantee you it’s the latter. There is a law against texting and driving here and I see people all over the place doing it. I mean hell, you’d think they’d take advantage of that to meet their quotas in tickets at the very least.

I guess the cops on patrol are too distracted by their cellphones to notice distracted drivers.